The first of May's two Awesome Ottawa awards goes to Sean Horn, to support initial development of a wearable robot for use in rehabilitation.

Sean, who has recently co-founded Active Bionics Inc., explains that the rehabilitative exoskeleton, designed to assist those with difficulty walking, will be called Modo, “because of how we have designed the platform to be modular and customizable to the user’s needs.” It is also being designed to use readily available components and materials. Currently, he says, similar products are priced very high — $70,000 or more — and are usually not owned by the user. Sean and his colleagues would like to bring Modo to market for much less, and will use the award to support continued development and testing.

Sean is a recent graduate of Algonquin College’s Mechanical Engineering Technology program, and works as a project manager for an engineering and fabrication firm.